


VampAmber's Inferno

by VampAmber



Category: La Divina Commedia | The Divine Comedy - Dante Alighieri
Genre: Angst, Bad Poetry, Empathy, Epic Poetry, Free Verse, GISHWHES, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hell, Implied/Referenced Torture, Inferno (La Divina Commedia | The Divine Comedy - Dante Alighieri), Poetry, Religion, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Rewrite, Short, The Author Regrets Everything, Twitter, all the angst!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 18:52:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25800127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VampAmber/pseuds/VampAmber
Summary: A short rewrite of the Inferno section of The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. This was written for a task for Gish2020.Item #101Epic poems are, well, epic. But they're also way too long. Re-write a classic epic poem such as Beowulf or the Iliad for modern attention spans — as a tweet-thread of no more than 10 tweets. Submit a screenshot and also a link to your poem.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 1





	VampAmber's Inferno

**Author's Note:**

> Since this actually turned out pretty good, I decided to share it with you guys. Not yet sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Only time will tell?
> 
> Also, not completely sure how close this stayed to the original...

Off on a perfectly normal walk  
Through the woods, Good Friday  
A far off mountain, I chose that destination  
My path blocked, by three frightening animals  
But I have help, a ghost, Virgil  
Sent from my beloved and others  
From on high  
The path, my path, leading me  
Through Hell, through more,  
Heaven being our final aim  
The first of the layers  
The indecisive, tortured  
For choosing neither good nor evil  
Not so different from Hell itself  
The punishment does not fit the crime  
A ferry, before reaching the First Circle  
For not knowing Christ, before death  
Unjust afterlife  
Having no option but Sin  
Great minds, kind, pious, wholesome  
But does that even matter?  
The Second Circle, Lust  
Sins of the flesh, the libido  
Their flesh, now paying  
The Third Circle, Gluttony  
Raining filth for their excess  
The Fourth Circle, Avarice  
The wantful and the wasteful  
Endless battles with heavy stones  
The Fifth Circle, Wrath  
Swampland, fighting forever  
In a cesspool for their Sin,  
The petulant, breathing mud underneath  
The journey delayed at the gate  
Needing Heavenly intervention  
But then  
The Sixth Circle, Heretics  
Those whose beliefs, their faiths  
Were deemed a Sin  
And punished as such  
The Seventh Circle, rings within circles  
The ones violent to others, boiling blood  
The ones who took their own lives,  
Became a vast forest of trees  
Weeping willows all,  
No matter the arboreal species  
Violence towards God, towards nature, towards art  
All suffering, all condemned for their Sins  
The Eighth Circle, broken up  
Individual sections, interwoven Sins  
Baring their life’s Sinful choices  
As physical pains and loss  
The Ninth Circle, the Betrayers  
An ice filled hole, an eternal frozen lake  
Covered in ice, in frost  
No warmth for their Sins  
With the ultimate sinner, Lucifer  
Half frozen, thrown from Heaven  
Three heads, each feasting on the three greatest Sinners  
Judas  
Cassius  
Brutus  
A chill through one’s soul  
Witnessing these potential consequences  
Of living a Sinful life,  
Whether or not you chose to  
Finally we leave these nine circles  
Arriving on Easter Sunday  
My mind, my very soul,  
Forever scarred, from those images  
The scenes of torture, the screaming,  
Oh! The screaming  
I close my eyes and cry

**Author's Note:**

> For anybody who's curious, here's the [original tweet thread](https://twitter.com/VampAmber/status/1292309615003217920).


End file.
